Goodbyes
by CrowCake
Summary: Kisame wonders what Itachi could be so fidgity about. He's only going to be fighting Sasuke tomorrow; no big deal. Right?


Kisame watched his partner turn the cup of tea he was holding around in his hands from across the fire. Itachi appeared to be looking for something at the bottom of it, but he and Kisame knew full well that all Itachi was able to see of the cup was a small greenish blur against the brownish blur that was the dirt they were sitting on. It didn't help that the sun had set almost an hour ago. Still, Itachi sat with his knees tucked up to his chin turning the cup around and around, deep in thought.

Kisame sighed and took a swig from his own cup before turning his gaze to the dancing flames once more. There was a slight rustling sound as Itachi curled and uncurled his toes. If there was one thing Kisame knew, it was that Uchiha Itachi didn't fidget.

The shark-man sighed again, louder this time in hopes of getting his partner's attention but didn't get so much as movement of a head in return. At last, Kisame put his cup down next to him and leaned back to support himself with his arms and he stretched his legs out in front of his crossed at the ankles. The Mist nin then tilted his head back and stared at the moon.

Still, the tiny noises from Itachi's direction kept persisting. By the sound of it, he'd stopped turning his cup and was now trying to create a little whirlpool with his tea.

Kisame sighed a third time as he leaned forward again as he pulled his legs up to himself and crossed them, placing an elbow on each knee and fixing his partner with a gaze.

Itachi either didn't notice or didn't care, because he continued treating the spinning tea as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"Is something wrong?" the shark-man inquired a bit more gruffly then he'd intended to sound. As a reply Itachi stopped spinning his tea and took a sip.

Kisame, of course, wasn't satisfied with the answer. Reluctantly, he stood up and walked over to where his partner was sitting and positioned himself so that he was standing right between the Uchiha and the only source of light. From a sitting position or not, it's usually pretty hard to ignore a nearly seven foot tall blue man looming over you.

Itachi lifted his head slowly to spare a glance at the blue blur in front of him. Kisame tilted his head to the side a bit so some light would fall on the Uchiha's face. Not surprisingly, his eyes were cloudy with pain. They were, however, a rarely-seen shade of onyx rather than their usual crimson. Kisame squatted down so that he was almost eye-level with Itachi.

"You didn't take your medicine today, did you?" The shark asked accusingly.

Itachi still didn't say anything, but put his cup down on the ground and reached into the pocket of his cloak, pulling out two small pills.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Kisame asked, reaching for his partner's tea and shoving it towards him. "Just swallow them."

"I won't be needing them after tonight," Itachi murmured quietly. He closed the fist them held the pills and with a flick of his thumb sent them flying into the air, over Kisame, and into the fire where the flames burned green for a second with a hiss before returning to normal.

Kisame almost winced at the thought of what could have been in those pills to do that to a fire. As a cover, he laughed nervously.

"You sound like you think you're going to die tomorrow," he joked placing the cup on the ground next to his partner.

Now normally, Itachi never found the Mist nin's jokes very funny and tended to ignore them as if he'd didn't hear. This time, his head dropped noticeably and gaze drifted off to the ground somewhere to his left. Kisame stopped laughing and examined this phenomenon.

Realization slowly dawned on him. "Wait, you really think you're going to die, aren't you?"

No response.

"Don't be stupid, Itachi-san!" Kisame let himself fall backwards so that he was sitting in front of his partner rather than squatting. "You honestly think you won't be able to take on your own _brother_? No offense but that kid sucks! I don't understand why you didn't kill him last time."

"He's gotten stronger," Itachi mumbled absently.

"Well, yeah, but how much stronger can a kid like him get in three years?" Kisame chuckled again. "I mean, even with Orochimaru's help, that kid could never…he shouldn't be able to…"

"It doesn't matter," Itachi interrupted quietly, still refusing to even look in his partner's general direction.

Kisame searched his face for any clue at all of what he was thinking, but found nothing.

"I don't see why you're so bothered by this. It's your fault for waiting this long. If you'd wanted to kill the kid you could have just done so whenever you'd felt like it. The only reason I could think of that you'd put it off this long and give him an opportunity to get stronger would be if you…" Kisame stopped talking as the truth hit him.

Itachi lifted his head and looked at his partner at last. There were plenty of things Kisame wanted to yell at him about. First of all, why would he bother prolonging his life with high-risk pills, that they got from the _black market _of all places to buy medicine, only to let himself get killed by his little brother? Why bother at all and not just die like any other missing nin that had nothing to live for would? Most of all, was this the only reason Itachi had let the arrogant little wimp live all this time?

But right now there was no way Kisame could bring himself to say anything when confronted with the yet more confusing sight in front of him. Itachi looked…apologetic? It was hard to read but it looked like he was asking for Kisame to drop the subject or to forgive him for something or just regretting having ever said anything but whatever it was, the expression just looked so wrong on Itachi.

"So you're seriously planning to die by his hand?"

After a pause, Itachi nodded slowly.

"Well I guess I can't stop you then." Kisame searched his partner's face again. "I don't know if this is some kind of redemption for what, but if you want to go out and get killed, it's no skin off my back." the shark-man stood up and lumbered back over to his place across the fire.

"Thanks," the Uchiha murmured resting his head against his knees just as Kisame got half-way around.

"You're welcome, kid." the Mist nin smirked turning back to look at Itachi.

The boy didn't seem to mind his old nickname, and to ironically enough at that moment looked more childlike than he did over ten years ago when Kisame first met him.

"It's been fun," Kisame continued, "having you as a partner I mean. I could have gotten worse. It's a shame to see you go.

When Itachi didn't answer, the shark-man walked the rest of the way back over to his spot and plopped down before picking up his cup again and gulping down some tea. His partner across the fire didn't move, and after a few minutes was asleep altogether.

Kisame scrutinized the form sitting before him, barely into his twenties, and let out another sigh. Hell, he'd practically raised this emotionless kid, having spent nearly ever day with him for the past decade. Still in all that time he'd never learned a thing about him on a personal level, like how he actually felt about slaughtering his family. In truth, he didn't know anything more about the boy that he couldn't have found in the bingo book.

"You're a hell of a mystery to me, Itachi-san," Kisame regarded to his sleeping partner before draining his cup.

-

* * *

A/N: This is just something I noticed, but by Sasuke's flashbacks the massacre occurred five years before the start of the series. The strange thing is, seven years before the start, Orochimaru left Akatsuki. That means Itachi was in Akatsuki at least two years before the clan was swiped. That's why Kisame's known him for over ten years, even though it's only been nine of so since the massacre.


End file.
